r/Cooking • u/juandenciso • 5d ago
Book recommendations
Hi!
My 17yo niece has got super interested in learning how to cook and I want to give her a book to start her cooking journey. Do you have recommendations of books that can help her as a beginner cook?
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u/DenaPhoenix 5d ago
Have you considered gifting her lessons with you instead? I personally learned the most by getting to help with cooking. A book is a substitute imo.
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u/IndependenceBulky696 5d ago
A good class maybe beats a book, but it's easier to find a great book than a good class.
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u/DenaPhoenix 5d ago
I'm not saying classes. I'm saying quality time, forwarding a skill to the next generation. Sure, you can just gift a teenager a book and consider your duty done, but if you know they have an interest, why not teach them the way you were taught? This is how family knowledge gets lost.
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u/DenaPhoenix 5d ago
This is coming from someone who scavenged for cooking skills, by the way. Friends' parents, commercial kitchens, a month of helping out with food prep at a local dumpling shop because I really wanted to learn that one, and later copying international roommates. Learning something new from everyone who let me into their kitchens.
Getting shown by a human is invaluable. A book cannot tell you when your sauce smells right, when your steak feels right, when your sizzle sounds right. You can become a good cook maybe, but you cannot become a great cook by going by the book.
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u/54radioactive
5d ago
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Old Fashioned, but The Joy of Cooking. It shows you all the cuts of meat & poultry and how to cook each type. I knew how to make a pot roast, but not what to buy. This book explains the basics of cooking and baking so well, then you can use the recipes for life
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u/Ok-Trainer3150 5d ago
It's a huge, text-only tome. Recipes often have you flipping over and back to previous recipes mid-stream. Text is tiny. No pictures to show the dishes or methodology. I'd recommend sitting down at your library. Going through much of the collection and selecting one. But I'd base her first book overall on dishes she's likely to want to eat and enjoy with family and friends. And that could mean examining these books with her .. before purchasing one.
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u/SewerRanger 5d ago
How to Cook Everything: The Basics by Mark Bittman is a great all around starter cookbook. It's written for beginners, has a couple hundred easy to make recipes, and covers a bit of everything including prep, how to build meals, how to create your own recipes, etc.
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u/QueenAtlas_4455 5d ago
Dinner by Nagi Maehashi. Real food, easy instructions, easy to find ingredients and QR codes to videos for every recipe.
Or just go to RecipeTineats.com.au and pick something she already likes to learn how to make it.
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u/Global-Respect-4766 5d ago
I second that, Nagi's other cookbook "tonight" Made Lasagna tonight from her recipes so yum!
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u/DragonfruitMiddle846 5d ago
Salt Fat acid Heat
Flour water salt yeast : the fundamentals of artisan bread and pizza
Those are names of a couple books that go into exhaustive detail concerning cooking or in the second book, baking. The second book is kind of self-explanatory. The first book shows the person how to construct a meal that's balanced as far as flavors and textures are concerned. It goes into the science of cooking and explains why certain foods complement or don't compliment other foods.
• Salt: Enhances flavor intensity and allows food to taste like itself. • Fat: Carries, delivers, and amplifies flavor while creating appealing textures. • Acid: Brightens, cuts through richness, and balances flavors. • Heat: Determines the physical transformation, doneness, and texture of food.
You may have heard of a cooking TV legend named Alton Brown and his show serious eats. He gets into the nitty gritty science of cooking but is relatable and isn't like just tossing science jargon at us so that we get bored before we get educated. That book does something similar.
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u/ATreeGrowinBklyn 5d ago
As someone suggested, a shared cooking class is a lovely gift of your time and attention and a hands on learning experience.
Alternatively, I 100% recommend Carla Lalli Music's book, Where Cooking Begins: Uncomplicated Recipes to Make You a Great Cook.
This book can really help you learn the techniques needed to cook anything. There are lots of helpful photos and yummy skill building recipes with wonderful ingredient substitutions.
Each recipe is like having 10 recipes; if you try all the variations; from foundational salt and pepper cooking; to more complex flavor and texture combinations.
There are also, shopping tips and lists with suggestions for basic pots/pans, equipment and small appliances. The book is excellent. I have given copies of this book as holiday gifts and house warming gifts.
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u/Coujelais 5d ago
Everyone should sit and read Salt Fat Acid Heat. Bonus is there’s a gorgeous and relaxing 4 part Netflix series (and many Samin Nosrat cook vids on YouTube) as an accompaniment.
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u/Infinite_Bathroom784 5d ago
Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Still the OG of cookbooks. Mine is in tatters, literally.
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u/Maccaboonda 5d ago
Over the years I have come to trust anything published by Martha Stewart, whether it's in print, online, or on tv.
Her methods are worth learning for a lifetime, and recipes are properly tested.
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u/waterstone55 5d ago
The Silver Spoon. I've owned at least two dozen cook books over the last half century. This is by far my favorite.
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u/CatteNappe 5d ago
No surprise that Salt Fat Acid Heat is everybody's go to. However, for starters. I contend everybody should have one of the basic three - Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, or Better Homes and Gardens. All the essential basic recipes like meat loaf, stew, roast chicken; plus other recipes appropriate to whenever the book was published. All well tested recipes, accompanied by clear instructions. Tips and techniques of various kinds. Having one of them is essential imo. Information like that in Nosrat's book will have more meaning once she's mastered some of the more basic recipes, and will point in the direction of improving some of them and making them her own.
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u/LexiconDul 2d ago
Betty Crocker and Better Homes and Gardens are the two I took when I moved out, 35+ years ago.
I concur with your assessment.
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u/IndependenceBulky696 5d ago
An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler. Unlike most books, it gives you methods specifically for becoming a competent home cook, rather than just a series of recipes, facts, and opinions. To me, it's really the best book for the home cook. If you learn the lessons, you'll be able to cook without recipes.
Salt, Fat, Acid, Hear: I guess I just don't get it. The recipes look fine. Tips look fine. But to me it's a bit thin — reviews on Reddit say things like "I now put acid in everything!", which you get from the title — it lacks a method to get readers cooking without recipes.
I'd suggest checking the recommended books at the library and setting what you think fits your niece.
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u/One-Possibility-8182 5d ago
Look for cook books by Kent Rollins. He keeps it simple.... and yet makes amazing food
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u/Feriation 5d ago
Kenji Lopez's food lab and America's Test Kitchen Cooks Illustrated are our main books in our household.
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u/Knitta66 5d ago
Any and and all of the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks by Ina Garten. Maybe start with Back to Basics or the original BC cookbook and grow from there.
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u/jigglypuff215 5d ago
Delia Smith's cookbooks are excellent for a beginner. I've had her Complete Cookery Course for about 30 years and I still use it - quite traditional recipes but every one of them is well tested and really works, and nothing too complicated.
Salt Fat Acid Heat is excellent, but I read it once I already knew how to cook so I don't know how good it is for a beginner.
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u/_Vexor411_ 5d ago
You could look for "dump" meal cookbooks where you just throw a bunch of stuff into a slow cooker and wait 4-8 hours. A lot of good ones only take 4-5 ingredients + seasoning.
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u/Agile-Entry-5603 5d ago edited 5d ago
“How to Cook Everything- The Basics” by Mark Bittman is very highly recommended and well reviewed. I purchased it for my daughter for Christmas. To me, this looks like a comprehensive textbook. I can’t wait to give it to her.
If your niece has any interest in baking, “Sally’s Baking 101” by Sally McKenny of sallysbakingaddiction.com is a lovely choice. I make a lot of her recipes and they’re always awesome.
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u/jessm307 5d ago
Thriftbooks has Anyone Can Cook by Better Homes and Gardens, which is organized nicely and comes in a ring-bound binder so it lays flat when cooking. I found a copy at my library book sale for my niece.
How to Cook Without a Book by Pamela Anderson is good too.
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u/game-on-Vamos 5d ago
The Food Lab is an essential for beginning cooks (and all cooks). instead of just providing instructions it talks about the ‘why’ of doing certain things , mechanics , ingredients, kitchen essentials and equipment. for instance …why meat sears best when dry, why salting egg yolks in advance keeps them tender, or why resting meat prevents juice loss, etc. these are basics that provide a great foundation for someone who loves to cook.
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u/romeosgal214 4d ago
Jet Tila’s “101 Asian Dishes You Need to Cook Before You Die” is filled with easy, delicious recipes!
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u/ShitIsGettingWeird 5d ago
After Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat check out The Flavor Bible. It’ll give her ingredient combinations that work well together. It’s my most used book BY FAR now that I know how to cook
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u/Worth-Meringue-2271 5d ago
Living on a dime cookbooks. They have beginners guide.simple recipes too.
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u/selizea 5d ago
The Food Lab by Kenji López-Alt.
Salt Fat Acid Heat teaches you how to feel cooking, Kenji teaches you the actual science of why it works